2 March 2025
Jo Grady, General Secretary of UCU, has written the following letter to Prof. Deborah Prentice, V-C of Cambridge University, protesting the wildly excessive request for a semi-permanent injunction against protests calling for an end to the ongoing genicide in Palestine.
UCU General Secretary to University of Cambridge VC: drop your injunction suppressing free speech
Solidarity, UCU, University Policy
UCU General Secretary Jo Grady has written today to call on the University of Cambridge Vice Chancellor to withdraw a proposed injunction which attacks freedom of assembly and attempts to suppress protests in solidarity with Palestine. The hearing on the injunction is due to take place in the Royal Courts of Justice at 10am on Thursday 27 February.
Our branch passed a motion condemning the use of injunctions to quash protest. We urge UCU branches around the country to help build a campaign against these undemocratic and repressive actions by the University of Cambridge and the University of London, which has sought a similar injunction against pro-Palestine protests.
26 February 2025
Dear Professor Prentice,
I am writing to express UCU’s grave concern at the University of Cambridge’s attempt to curtail peaceful protest through an injunction, which you are seeking at the High Court tomorrow.
In our view, this shameful move places your University – for whom the promotion of freedom of speech and expression is supposedly a first principle – in the vanguard of suppressing basic democratic rights. In the University’s claim at the High Court, you define the defendants as anyone who “for a purpose connected with the Palestine-Israel conflict, without the claimant’s consent” protests on or even “slow[s] down” access to several central administrative and ceremonial university premises. Moreover, you request a five-year injunction. This perversely infringes the rights of future students.
Demanding such an incredibly broad and lengthy precautionary injunction is without precedent in the context of universities. Such attempts to quash Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the Human Rights Act by asserting private property rights have hitherto been the preserve of private companies seeking to shut down protest.
As you know well, universities are unique institutions, quintessential public goods which are meant to define, and be defined by, openness and democracy. That Cambridge should instead be resembling a repressive private corporation therefore does not only make a mockery of your institution’s reputation; it is anathema to the academy itself.
Having enjoyed a lengthy career in the humanities before becoming Cambridge Vice Chancellor, you will surely appreciate that, as teachers, there is little more rewarding than seeing students emerge from our seminar rooms and lecture halls as conscientious citizens.
As academics and higher education staff, then, we should be proud that our students have taken a lead in standing against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, one of the worst atrocities of our lifetimes. They will be remembered as inheritors of great traditions of peaceful protest and non-violent civil disobedience.
We urge Cambridge to live up to its basic duties as a University and drop the claim at the High Court. UCU would be happy to work with you, locally and nationally, to discuss how freedom of expression and freedom of assembly can be protected, and how institutions can end their complicity in Israel’s crimes.
Your sincerely,
Dr Jo Grady
UCU General Secretary
